]]>The year is 2010. Barack Obama is beginning the second year of his presidency, oil prices are hovering around $80 a barrel, and Congress is hotly debating an ambitious carbon reduction program known as cap and trade. Enter NRG Energy, one of the country’s largest power companies, with headquarters in Houston and West Windsor Township, New Jersey. Reading the writing on the wall, NRG decides to get out in front of a potential carbon tax by building the world’s largest carbon capture and storage unit on top of a coal-fired power plant it owns in Fort Bend County, southwest of Houston. In March 2010 the U.S. Department of Energy announces it will contribute $154 million towards the cost of the project, which it hopes will…View Original Post

]]>Although the oil and gas industry in 2015 won a major victory in the Legislature with a law that prohibits local governments from regulating energy exploration, the head of the Texas Oil and Gas Association said anti-industry activists are continuing to put up roadblocks at the local level—especially now that Congress and the White House are controlled by pro-production Republicans. “What we are seeing is the anti-oil-and-gas forces going state to state and local governments to thwart oil and gas activities,” said association president Todd Staples. “They’ve lost the [Obama] Administration, so what we are seeing is they are making it tough at every level.” Staples in particular pointed to opposition that has grown in South Texas to building Liquefied Natural Gas export terminals at…View Original Post

]]>Nearly a quarter century in, the best you can hope for from a new Old 97’s album is more of the same. That’s not a slag; it’s an endorsement of consistency. The band’s new Graveyard Whistling (ATO Records) piles high the signature moves, including “Jesus Loves You,” a compendium of drunken pick-up lines, in which Rhett Miller offers up what God’s son won’t: “He’s got the whole world in his hands / I’ve got Lone Stars in cans.” The rest of the set is proof that there can be vitality in repetition, valor in sticking with the horse that brought you. We should all age this gracefully. —Andy Langer “I feel like Hank Williams tonight,” Sunny Sweeney sings on her fourth album, Trophy (Thirty Tigers,…View Original Post

]]>For the past eight years, George W. Bush has kept as low a profile as any ex-president in living memory. Not for him the nonstop reputation burnishing of Richard Nixon, the high-minded humanitarian work of Jimmy Carter, or the dodgy globe-trotting of Bill Clinton. Instead, our forty-third president has largely retired to his Dallas home, where in recent years he has devoted much of his time to his new avocation, oil painting. Though we’ve caught glimpses of Bush’s canvases in recent years—and more than glimpses at a Dallas exhibit in 2014—Portraits of Courage: A Commander in Chief’s Tribute to America’s Warriors (Crown Publishing, February 28) is the first published gathering of his work: 66 portraits of service members and veterans, many of whom served in…View Original Post

]]>This past election season, the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce waded into politics like never before: it hosted Q&A sessions with most of the major candidates and broke with precedent when it endorsed Hillary Clinton in the general election. The USHCC’s president and CEO, Edinburg native Javier Palomarez, emerged as one of Trump’s most vocal critics, calling him a “clown” and accusing him of “fearmongering.” After the election, though, the 56-year-old—who splits his time between Flower Mound and Washington, D.C.—accepted an informal role on the president’s National Diversity Coalition. Sonia Smith: You were a vocal critic of Trump during the campaign, calling him a “buffoon.” Now you’ve joined his diversity council as an informal adviser. What caused you to soften your stance? Javier Palomarez: It’s not…View Original Post

]]>Gary Cartwright was running short on patience and long on doubt. It was the spring of 1975, and he had just written a magazine piece about, of all things, a legendary dogfight. Impeccably researched and worded, “Leroy’s Revenge” also happened to be horrifyingly violent and shockingly funny, a combination that made it an impossible read for more sensitive souls. As Cartwright described the experience years later, he’d been shopping the piece to magazines all over New York. Most rejected it out of hand; Cartwright always swore that one publication—Esquire? Rolling Stone? He never could recall—had accepted it, only to have the edit staff threaten to walk out if it ran. So Cartwright sent “Leroy’s Revenge” to Texas Monthly editor Bill Broyles. Texas Monthly was barely…View Original Post

]]>https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-culture/the-writers-life/feed/8How to Make America Great Again with Domestic Energy Resourceshttps://www.texasmonthly.com/energy/make-america-great-domestic-energy-resources/
https://www.texasmonthly.com/energy/make-america-great-domestic-energy-resources/#commentsFri, 17 Feb 2017 22:42:46 +0000http://www.texasmonthly.com/?p=526927An energy plan in two parts: don’t screw up what we have going for us, and don’t settle for what we’ve done so far.

]]>A guest column written by T. Boone Pickens, the founder, chairman, and CEO at BP Capital and TBP Investments Management, and architect of the Pickens Plan, a campaign to get the U.S. off of OPEC oil and on the U.S.’s natural resources. In the late eighties and early nineties, I considered running for governor of Texas. Now a lot has changed since that time. But one thing that hasn’t changed is the need to make sure we have a government that works. “Can you really run a government like a business?” I was asked at the time. “Sure you can,” I replied. “It’s a business to start with. Taxpayers are like stockholders, and both are entitled to a full day’s work for a full day’s pay. For…View Original Post

]]>https://www.texasmonthly.com/energy/make-america-great-domestic-energy-resources/feed/12The Faces of Obamacarehttps://www.texasmonthly.com/politics/the-faces-of-obamacare/
https://www.texasmonthly.com/politics/the-faces-of-obamacare/#commentsWed, 15 Feb 2017 03:16:11 +0000http://www.texasmonthly.com/?p=526801For many Americans, the controversial health law is government run amok. But for these people in San Antonio, it’s been a lifesaver.

]]>Ursula Garza Hernandez Photographs by Josh Huskin Ursula Garza Hernandez felt as though she were walking on broken glass. She’d had bad days before, but this one, in February 2015, was especially awful, causing her to step gingerly, feeling her way across the parking lot at the University of the Incarnate Word, in San Antonio. Hernandez, who was 36 at the time, worked as an adjunct professor at both ITT Technical Institute and Brown Mackie College and was the mother of a 10-year-old girl. But she was also working toward her Ph.D. in organizational leadership. On this day, she was on her way to her Cultural Aspects of Research class—if she could just get there. Hernandez suffers from type 1 diabetes. Unlike those with…View Original Post

]]>Every other week, a cargo freighter loaded with about 100,000 tons of marble-sized iron ore pellets docks at a new, $740 million industrial plant on the shores of the La Quinta Channel, in the Port of Corpus Christi. There, the pellets are unloaded and placed on a conveyer belt that eventually carries them to the top of a 450-foot tower—the tallest building in South Texas—where they are superheated and exposed to hydrogen and carbon monoxide gas to reduce the iron’s oxygen content, leaving roughly 91-percent pure iron, which is then melted into candy bar-shaped bricks and sent back on the same conveyor belt to another cargo freighter. This is what’s called a direct reduction plant, and the factory in Corpus Christi was opened last October…View Original Post

]]>Wind energy exceeds hydroelectric power thanks to Texas wind farms, Exxon settles a dispute in San Antonio, and a new refinery in South Texas signs a deal for geothermal energy. Here are a few of the biggest headlines in Texas energy this week. Texas Wind Energy, the Gift That Keeps on Giving According to new information from the U.S. Department of Energy and the American Wind Energy Association, wind power production exceeded hydroelectric power for the first time in 2016. Wind energy is now the number-one source of renewable energy in the country, producing 82,183 megawatts of electricity. As the cost of wind energy production continues to fall, companies are investing more in wind farms across the country, especially in Texas. Texas produces 20,321 megawatts…View Original Post

]]>https://www.texasmonthly.com/energy/week-texas-energy-wind-power-becomes-number-one-source-renewable-energy/feed/3The Bluebonnets Have Already Arrivedhttps://www.texasmonthly.com/the-daily-post/bluebonnets-already-arrived/
https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-daily-post/bluebonnets-already-arrived/#respondFri, 10 Feb 2017 20:54:31 +0000http://www.texasmonthly.com/?p=526711We love our state flower, of course, but it's a little early for them to be blooming, right?

]]>I’ve lived a couple of blocks off White Oak Bayou in Houston for about seven years, and I’ve been casually monitoring the first outbreak of bluebonnets through that time. I remember when they came up a day or two before Valentine’s Day, and even that seemed really early to me. But on February 8, a week ahead of all my previous records, I spotted my first bluebonnet of 2017. I talked to Andrea DeLong-Amaya, director of horticulture at the University of Texas’s Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center about what was, to me, a startling development. Though I see the upshot: at least we’re being treated to bluebonnets a little earlier this year. John Nova Lomax: This beats my previous record bluebonnet by about a week.…View Original Post

]]>Beyond here, there be dragons—or at least the most interesting articles I’ve read this week by other writers. How blind is this Texas oil regulator’s blind trust? by Steve Thompson The Dallas Morning News Texas law allows politicians to set up “blind trusts” that really are more what I call winky-blinky trusts—often not really blind or managed by a disinterested party. The generally accepted idea of a brother-in-law deal is one that is not arms-length, and the Morning News tells us of a literal brother-in-law deal involving a state oil regulator. “With millions of dollars at stake, an Exxon Mobil unit went before Texas regulators to argue against a restriction on its operations. One member of the Railroad Commission, Ryan Sitton, took the lead on…View Original Post

]]>I can’t help it. I complain about everything. And I was more than primed to whine, bitch, and kvetch about the Super Bowl invading my hometown of Houston. All those befuddled tourists and motorcades of dignitaries clogging up the roads: Get off my highways! And really? The freaking Patriots? Again? Playing the Falcons, among the least storied, most forgettable franchises in football history? Fie on this so-called “Big Game.” All this hoopla, for what? What good would the Super Bowl do for anyone other than some fat-cat CEOs and celebs jetting in on their Gulfstreams to see and be seen, and the wheeler-dealers in the Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau, so keen to show off our glittering new $357 million Marriott Marquis (with famous…View Original Post

]]>On Monday the Houston Chronicle reported that the Trump administration is considering naming Barry Smitherman, the former chairman of the Texas Railroad Commission, to be the next chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). According to the Chronicle’s anonymous source, Smitherman met with Trump’s transition team in Washington, D.C., before the inauguration in January to discuss the appointment. (An email to Smitherman was not immediately returned.) The FERC is the federal agency charged with regulating the interstate transmission of electricity, natural gas, and oil, as well as reviewing proposed LNG terminals and licensing hydroelectric projects. That gives it the power to approve controversial pipelines such as Keystone XL and the Dakota Access Pipeline. On Monday, the agency gave its approval for the $4.2 billion Rover Pipeline,…View Original Post

]]>For the oil patch producers looking for higher prices as an incentive for drilling, an import tax proposed by U.S. House Republicans would be good news. But for a family looking for a cheap driving vacation, the tax could push up the price of gasoline at the pump by as much as 40 cents per gallon. Corporate tax reform and various tax proposals were a large part of President Donald Trump’s campaign, and have been discussed with more frequency and fervor since he took office. Much has been made of the twenty-percent tax proposal on imports from Mexico to pay for the wall the President promised to build along the border, but the tax proposal that appears to have a bit more momentum is a “border adjustment” tax sponsored by…View Original Post

]]>The Senate confirmed Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State, a pipeline ruptured north of Dallas, and Home Depot invests in wind energy. Here are a few of the biggest headlines in Texas energy this week. Rex Tillerson Confirmed as Secretary of State Texan and former chief executive of ExxonMobil, Rex Tillerson, became Secretary of State on Wednesday. The Senate confirmed his nomination with a 56-to-43 vote, and the former oil executive-turned-America’s-top-diplomat will now be playing a major part in carrying out Trump’s foreign policy. Before his confirmation, Tillerson came under fire for his business ties to Russia and Vladimir Putin, and for having publicly denounced sanctions against Russia that reportedly lost Exxon hundreds of millions of dollars. Tillerson’s wavering opinions on climate change also came…View Original Post

]]>The two most entertaining personalities on the New England Patriots’ roster happen to play the same position. And with All-Pro tight end Rob Gronkowski not playing due to injury, Houston-area native (Alief Taylor High) and former Texas A&M star Martellus Bennett has become the go-to quote for Super Bowl LI. I covered Bennett when he played for the Dallas Cowboys and was drawn to his colorful, if sometimes childish, personality. During Wednesday’s media availability at the Patriots’ team hotel, Bennett held court for at least ten to fifteen minutes longer than any of his teammates. He’s one of the funnier players in the league, but he’s also extremely thoughtful. He made some headlines Monday by saying he wouldn’t go to the White House if the…View Original Post

]]>According to the director Ryan Ross, whose debut film, Wheeler, opens today, he broke into the movie business the way most kids with showbiz aspirations do: take whatever gigs you can find, and always try to work your way up. The 33-year-old Dallas native got his first big break as a student at the University of Texas at Austin, when he interned on Richard Linklater’s A Scanner Darkly. After graduating from UT in 2006 and moving to Los Angeles, he found low-level work at Imagine Entertainment, where he did “odds and ends jobs” for mega-producer Brian Grazer. While putting together an event for Grazer, he met the semi-famous actor Stephen Dorff. Once a rising young star, Dorff had hit a rough patch, starring in schlock like…View Original Post

]]>I was walking through a Pappasito’s in downtown Houston on Tuesday evening when I bumped into Cowboys Hall of Famer Rayfield “Big Cat” Wright. Seeing the former Cowboys great was enough to make my night, but then someone from across the restaurant called out Rayfield’s name. It was perhaps the baddest ass tailback to ever play in this state: Earl Campbell. I’ve spotted quite a few celebrities during the past couple of days covering the Super Bowl mayhem, but seeing the Houston Oilers legend will not be topped. We sat down with Campbell and one of his friends and talked some football leading up to Sunday’s Super Bowl LI. Campbell was disappointed the Cowboys didn’t make it to Houston, and this prompted a mini-rant from Wright. …View Original Post

]]>https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-daily-post/scenes-super-bowl-li-spotting-earl-campbell/feed/4Renewable Stories: “Learning to Roughneck”https://www.texasmonthly.com/energy/renewable-stories-learning-roughneck/
https://www.texasmonthly.com/energy/renewable-stories-learning-roughneck/#respondFri, 03 Feb 2017 19:30:30 +0000http://www.texasmonthly.com/?p=526036There’s been a recent uptick in activity in the Permian Basin. This week we look back at the last time West Texas was booming.

]]>Every week, in our recurring feature “Renewable Stories.” we’ll be bringing readers of the Energy Department a piece from our archives that resonates with current events. For more archive stories from Texas Monthly, follow our @TMTrove Twitter account. Just a month into 2017, a trend has started to emerge in the energy sector: the Permian Basin is the hot spot. Here’s a sampling of recent headlines: “As oil recovers, U.S. firms descend on the Permian Basin in West Texas“; “Chevron’s road back to profitability goes through Texas’ Permian Basin“; and “Exxon Mobil’s Stock Plunges On Weak Results, But We Expect Permian Basin To Drive Future Growth.” West Texans have long known the fickle relationship O&G has had with their fields. In fact, there were major plays as recent…View Original Post

]]>Beyond here, there be dragons—or at least the most interesting articles I’ve read this week by other writers. Courtesy of the McAllen Monitor Presidential bluster and blunder – haste for a wall and trade war with Mexico loom Editorial board, McAllen Monitor In the first weeks of his presidential administration, Donald Trump threw out the Trans Pacific Partnership, said he will renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, declared he will impose a 20-percent fee on imports from Mexico to pay for a border wall, and told Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto that U.S. military forces will handle “bad hombres down there” if the Mexican authorities don’t. Can we be surprised that the editorial board of the McAllen Monitor is nervous? The power of democracy is the…View Original Post

]]>In late 2014, with oil prices plunging, OPEC members met in Vienna and decided to let them keep falling. What ensued was a global game of chicken. While the falling prices would—and did—hurt OPEC countries, the cartel’s leaders believed the price decline would hurt upstart U.S. producers even more. The costs of hydraulic fracturing were too high, they reasoned, and as prices fell, America’s nascent influence on global oil prices would be over before it started. Things didn’t quite work out that way. Prices plummeted to less than $30 a barrel from more than $100, and U.S. production did slow. By last September, it dropped to about 8.6 million barrels a day from a peak of more than 9.6 million in April 2015, but we…View Original Post

]]>https://www.texasmonthly.com/energy/opec-v-frackers-round-two/feed/6This Week in Texas Energy: Movement in the Permian, Pipeline Protests, and Morehttps://www.texasmonthly.com/energy/week-texas-energy-movement-permian-pipeline-protests/
https://www.texasmonthly.com/energy/week-texas-energy-movement-permian-pipeline-protests/#respondFri, 27 Jan 2017 23:10:51 +0000http://www.texasmonthly.com/?p=525671Here are a few of the biggest headlines in Texas energy this week.

]]>From wind turbines to Wilbur Ross, here are a few of the big headlines in Texas energy this week. Plains All American Pipeline to Purchase Gathering System in Permian Basin Greater oil production in the Permian Basin could continue as a result of some recent major investments by outside companies. On Tuesday, Plains All American Pipeline announced its decision to purchase a Permian crude oil gathering system for $1.2 billion. According to the Dallas Morning News, the company expects a doubling in production in the area over the next few years. The Permian Basin currently produces 2.1 million barrels a day. Proposed Tax on Imports Could Affect Oil Costs The Trump Administration’s proposal to tax imports by 20 percent has some talking the effects of increasing the cost…View Original Post

]]>https://www.texasmonthly.com/energy/week-texas-energy-movement-permian-pipeline-protests/feed/0Scenes from a Divided Statehttps://www.texasmonthly.com/politics/scenes-divided-state/
https://www.texasmonthly.com/politics/scenes-divided-state/#commentsFri, 27 Jan 2017 19:42:27 +0000http://www.texasmonthly.com/?p=525659On the weekend Donald Trump became the forty-fifth president of the United States, everyone called for unity—so long as the other side would just agree with them.

]]>On Friday, January 20, 2017, the morning of the inauguration of President Donald J. Trump, Marsha Isbell and Bette Burton—Texans of some life experience and friends since kindergarten—greeted the dawning of a new political era in America with mimosas and champagne. The two were sitting at the end of the tiled backroom bar at the Original Ninfa’s on Navigation, where the Harris County Republican Party was hosting an inauguration watch party. “This morning, the lady on the news said, he’s not a politician. He’s a peopletician. I like that little phrase,” Isbell said. “He’s not taking a salary,” Burton chimed in. On the television hanging above the bar, Trump was signing his first orders as president. “They’re here to look out for the well-being of…View Original Post